BULGARIA: insurer assets saw an increase of 4.8% y-o-y in 2018

The assets of Bulgarian insurers in 2018 increased by 4.8% y-o-y to BGN 7.645 billion (EUR 3.91 billion), according to the statistics of insurance activity, published by the National Bank of Bulgaria on March 11.

On a quarterly comparison basis, assets fell by 1.3% (compared to the end of the 3rd quarter, 2018).

The assets of life insurers went up by 5.8% to BGN 2.153 billion. Their relative share in the total market assets as of the end of December 2018 amounted to 28.2% vs 27.9% a year ago. The assets of non-life insurers increased by 4.4% y-o-y to BGN 5.492 billion. Their relative share of the total market assets amounted to 71.8% vs 72.1% at the end of 2017.

The structure of insurer assets (at the end of 2018) was still dominated by securities - they formed 49.1% of the total assets, while in 2017 that figure was 51.5%. Shares and other forms of ownership increased by 11.6% to BGN 1.052 billion; receivables from insurance operations grew by 14.8% to BGN 864 million and deposits decreased by 2.5% to BGN 664.7 million. Thus, shares and other ownership accounted for 13.8% of insurers' total assets (vs 12.9% a year ago), receivables from insurance operations amounted to 11.3% (vs 10.3% in 2017), and deposits dropped from 9.3% to 8.7% in 2017.

In terms of currency structure of the assets, 42.5% at the end of 2018 were assets in BGN (vs 40.3% in 2017), 31.3% were assets in EUR (vs 30.7% a year ago), 3.9% were assets in USD (vs 3.5%), and 22.4% were assets in other currencies (vs 25.4% in 2017).

In terms of geographic structure, 2018 investment in Bulgaria increased by 5.2% to BGN 3.849 billion with relative share in total market amounting to 50.3% (vs 50.1% in 2017), while investments in the European Union grew by 2.1% to BGN 3.379 billion and the relative share in total assets dropped a little to 44.2% (vs 45.4% in 2017).

The detailed statistics of insurance activity in 2018 (from the National Bank) can be found here (in Bulgarian language only).